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How Much Does Getting A Tattoo Hurt?

Many people know by now that getting a tattoo is a painful process. After all, it’s not like getting a small paper cut or stubbing your toe or even like getting an inoculation. The tools used by tattoo artists push a needle into your skin at a rate of 80 to 150 times per second. That’s not per minute—that’s per second, in case you think it was a typo. So tattoo pain is to be expected.

1o Most Painful Areas for Tattoos

Pain is, of course, subjective, and we all have different thresholds for pain. But in general, the most painful tattoo areas are those that are covered by thin skin, those that are near the bone and joint areas, and the number of nerve endings in the area.

So unless you really like pain, you may want to avoid getting tattoos on the following parts of your body:

The pubic and genital region

Spine

Foot

Lips

Behind the ear

Chest and ribcage

Eyebrow

Eyelid

Inside the wrist

Elbow

Less Painful Areas

Have you noticed that pulling a single hair from your scalp is much less painful than pulling a single pubic hair? Different areas of the body have different ways of sending pain signals to our brains. The least painful tattoo areas are those with thick skin, fat, and muscle, they’re away from bones, and they don’t have too many nerve endings.

So these are the areas you may want to put your tattoo to avoid as much pain as you can:

Butt

Shoulder

Thigh

Calf

Upper and lower arm

Upper and lower back

Hips

These areas are great for your first tattoos.

Additional Tips

There’s really no way to eliminate all the pain associated with getting tattoos, short of getting under general anesthesia. But that requires doctors and medical bills, which will really drive the price to thousands of dollars. That brings its own sort of pain.

But there are ways minimize your discomfort:

Don’t drink alcohol. Liquor seems like an obvious solution to pain, but it’s actually going to make the procedure more painful. Alcohol is a blood thinner. So you will bleed more and the ink won’t take as easily as it should.

Don’t drink over the counter painkillers and caffeine. They’re all blood thinners too.

Drink lots of water instead. Drink lots of water the night before the procedure, and keep hydrated during the tattoo session. This allows the tattoo procedure to take less time because the ink takes more easily.

Get a good night’s sleep. You need a good rest beforehand, so your endorphins and adrenaline can help you prepare for the procedure. If you come in fatigued, you won’t last.

Eat a full breakfast before the tattoo procedure. Make sure you have lots of glucose. This helps with your stamina, as the procedure actually burns off a lot of calories.

Take a few short breaks during the procedure. This gives you a chance to refuel. Just don’t take too many breaks as that will interrupt the process and it will be longer and more painful.

Here’s hoping that with you can handle the tattoo pain more easily with these tips!